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Sunday, August 3, 2014

Falling In Love with Close Reading: Chapter 5 Through Your Eyes

Hi all! I am linking up with Sassy, Savvy, Simple Teaching's Close Reading Book Study once again to share my thoughts on chapter 5. This chapter advances to a study of point of view, a complex task that absolutely requires students to be able to read closely for word choice and nuances of argument.

Through out this book, one of the ideas that I know I will use in my practice next year, is using more domain specific vocabulary. Thinking about the artifacts of my students' writing from last year, they did well using transitional phrases referencing pieces of evidence from text. They knew they needed to use text based evidence as the foundation for any argument. To grow for next year, I need to teach my students to "use language that describes what makes it successfully compelling and persuasive, or what detracts from that" (pg.78). Teaching my students to use highly specific vocabulary will bring their analyses to a new level.

The author recommends teaching students how arguments are crafted and how to determine the effectiveness of these arguments with the use of videos. The authors used Mayor Bloomberg's ban on large, sugary drinks as a controversial topic to get students to think about arguments. The authors showed videos to the students to get them to think about the ways in which arguments appeal to our emotions or how the speaker uses powerful reasoning. The students viewed the videos multiple times to help them take notes and evaluate the arguments.

This is the area in which my past students would need further support. The authors use the ritual of reading through lenses twice (as opposed to once with other standards). First, students read to find the point of view/argument. Next, the students read to find what makes the point of view/argument persuasive.

A real strength of this chapter came at the end of the chapter. The authors include a chart listing different fallacies for dissecting poor arguments. You can bet this will have a place in my classroom next year!

Hope you all are having a great weekend! Don't forget the TpT Back to School Sale starts tomorrow!